FFEIL CYNNYDD

I believe that is Welsh for Progress file. As far as I’m concerned it means ‘very VERY important stuff that I can’t be trusted with’. This small black folder literally contains my life and only ever gets taken out of it’s super secret hidey hole when one of two rare occurrences rear their ugly heads from the proverbial depths of hell. I’m either going home (for some reason I feel incapable of doing so without my big folder of important stuff) or I’m applying for a job.

Half of the stuff in the folder is deadly serious. Birth certificates, bank details, national insurance card. My skin has been saved at job interviews in the past by the production of this file. It’s like the tardis only instead of alien technology is contains anything anyone might possibly want to photocopy or look at to prove that I am in fact who I say I am and can be given a job. One memorable occurrence saw me re-writing my entire application as I waited to be interviewed as the company had lost it. The other two with me hadn’t a clue what to write for the majority of it while I sailed through fairly easily with my big reference file of past jobs and exam certificates. The other half of the file is random stuff that I can’t throw away because I feel it should be important. This half contains miscellaneous items such as my Grade one singing certificate (made out to the wrong name), my failed driving test review and certificates for courses I was forced to do in school (you know the type, build something using pasta then get awarded a shiny certificate for teamworking). It also contains my personal favourite, my first ever CV.

Written at the tender age of 15 I actually have no idea how they thought we could legitimately use this to apply for job. I’m half tempted to believe it was all a giant conspiracy and that they packed us off with a misleading list of what we wanted to write then printed it off on ‘fancy paper’ not to give us a taste of the real world but to brutally crush anyone who tried to apply for work after GCSE’s thus forcing them back into the educational system. For your genuine entertainment I am going to transcribe the entire thing with a few observations thrown in (them be the bold bits).

My name is Emma Craig and I am currently attending Caldicot School. My hobbies include playing electirc bass guitar, singing, photography and Aerobics. My friends are Natalie, Michelle, John, Chantelle and Richard. Why oh dear lord why were we told to include a list of our friends? Note to you all : DO NOT PUT THIS IN A CV

At school I am studying for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, English, Maths, Information Technology, Music, French, History, Welsh and Religion G.C.S.E’s. My favourite subject is Music as I have a strong interest in the subject and find the topic material challenging. I also enjoy Biology, Chemistry and Information Technology and plan to take them on to Alevel. I have won several awards for singing (really? I suppose if you count school talent shows), including a Grade 1 certificate two years ago and while I no longer take grade examinations I am currently singing at a grade standard of 5 or 6. (This might be ok if I possibly included some notion of what I’d gained from the experiences-for example ‘I have preformed a solo with the backing of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra, an experience which required me to keep calm under huge amounts of pressure and has since given me the confidence to talk in front of large groups of people’. As a side note this is probably the most impressive thing I’ve ever done, I still include it on CVs now because it sounds darn impressive and you don’t have to tell them it was when you were 14 and by solo you mean a few lines of a verse.)

For work experiance last year I spent a week at BTI and Hogg Robinson Travel in Bristol. I have also covered for my friend’s paper round and done some babysitting. After my exams I hope to get a weekend job but at the moment I do not want anything to interfere with my studies.Another why moment. This is a CV. I am supposed to be applying for jobs. Why the careers person thought saying I didn’t want a job was acceptable I DO NOT KNOW. Also bless me with my I covered a paper round once and my mum gave me a few pound for making sure my brother didn’t set fire to the house while she went to the shop for milk routine.

In my opinion my personal qualities include being mature, hard working, polite, trust-worthy and having a great sense of team spirit. Ok so once again no explanation of why I have these qualities. I just do. I don’t like the fact I was clearly having to rack my brains for qualities here. Mature makes me sound like cheese and trust-worthy is an odd one too. You shouldn’t have to state that you won’t turn out to be a right little scallywag. I believe if I was questioned on my team spirit the answer would involve pasta.

Mmmm, what do you think guys? Would you hire me?

Tales of writing a real cv to be written soon. When I finish procrastinating that is.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Responses

This is almost too long ago that I can’t remember it but I’m fairly sure using the “Insert Border” function was actively encouraged… God knows why – the only time I’ve seen making your C.V. attractive working is on “Legally Blonde” and I’m fairly sure that’s not factually accurate…

I know it feels like you need experience to get experience sometimes (or all the time) but don’t be discouraged – all jobs come with a person specification and you can probably think of examples that tick the boxes. I think I went through a delusional phase when writing personal statements on job applications where I actually started to believe that I was just *amazing*. Eventually though, the words you use to describe yourself line up well enough with the words on their checklist and you start to get somewhere.

I was coming on here to compliment this HILARIOUS bit of post, but then noticed that the above person cited Legally Blonde as ‘not factually accurate’ and feel quite upset now as I used Elle Woods as a great example of a human being recently in one of my posts :(.